The home secretary, Suella Braverman, who last week caused outrage by referring to asylum seekers entering the UK as an “invasion”, had been warned by government lawyers that inflammatory immigration rhetoric risked inspiring a far-right terror attack.
Braverman’s comments came just one day after a man with links to the far right threw firebombs at a Dover immigration centre. On Saturday, counter-terrorism police announced they had found evidence that the attack was motivated by an “extreme rightwing” terrorist ideology.
In October 2020, Braverman, then attorney general for England and Wales, was briefed in detail about how hate speech by senior politicians could lead to a terrorist risk. It followed an alleged terror plot against a law firm shortly after Priti Patel, then home secretary, had claimed that “activist lawyers” were frustrating the removal of failed asylum seekers.
After the alleged incident, senior legal figures contacted the attorney general’s office to make clear their concern that inflammatory political rhetoric inspired violence.
In late October 2020, Braverman met in person with government lawyers, the lord chancellor and lord chief justice to discuss the “worrying increase in use of ‘activist lawyers’ rhetoric” by the government, an internal Bar Council newsletter reveals.
At the time, Braverman was so concerned that she contacted Patel to ask her if she would consider toning down her language.
However, last week Braverman doubled down on her choice of language, also referring to “Albanian criminals” in parliament, prompting Edi Rama, the prime minister of the eastern European country, to accuse Braverman of using “purely xenophobic” words.
One prominent barrister with knowledge of the discussions during October 2020 said that Braverman was fully aware that her intervention last week in the immigration debate was incendiary.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, they said: “At the very least, it was reckless. At worst, she knows it’s likely to instigate attacks. It’s either reckless or it’s deliberate and she’s got no concern for the consequences.
“The home secretary’s job is to ensure public safety, not to generate serious risk of harm to individuals.”Another senior legal source, who also asked not to be named, said: “Braverman was told directly of the risks such language was having on members of the profession.”
It can now be revealed that the day after Braverman used the word “invasion”, prominent far-right figure Mark Collett – who has praised Adolf Hitler, been arrested for inciting racial hatred and has called refugees “cockroaches” – forwarded a message on Telegram from a fellow white supremacist that said: “What’s happening to our borders is an invasion and no amount of pearl clutching will change that.”
Collet, founder of far-right group Patriotic Alternative, stated in a Telegram post the day after firebombs were thrown at the Kent immigration centre: “This attack is the unfortunate result of living in a multicultural tyranny imposed by a globalist system that cares nothing for white people.”
The term “globalist” has fallen under recent scrutiny, featuring in a spike in social media attacks on Rishi Sunak that draw on antisemitic conspiracy theories, linking the former banker to the false notion of a globalist conspiracy. Several prominent figures on the rightwing news channel GB News, including Nigel Farage and Dan Wootton, also used the term after Grant Shapps, who is Jewish, briefly replaced Braverman as home secretary last month.
Far-right elements also attacked the immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, after he rejected the language used by Braverman, with one accusing him on the rightwing Traditional Britain Group Telegram channel of “treason” and referring to his Jewish faith alongside an image of Pepe the Frog, the cartoon character adopted by the alt-right.
On Friday, former skills minister Andrea Jenkyns provoked fresh dismay by referring to immigration lawyers as “anti-British”. In a letter to Braverman, Jenkyns wrote: “You were right to describe this as an invasion and many of my constituents thank you for your candour.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The home secretary’s first priority will always be to protect the security of the UK and the safety of its citizens.”
